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NYC First Inaugural Middle School Championships

In the past month, I have started getting involved with an organization in NYC called Beat the Streets, which teaches wrestling to city middle school and high school kids after school (as an alternative to whatever other trouble they could get into here..)

Anyways, this weekend they made history and hosted New York City's first ever Middle School Wrestling Championships. It was really great. I had never been to a youth tournament before and it was great to see these kids, the majority of whom had been wrestling for less than 30 sessions, really getting after it.

I was also pleasantly surprised at the number of young girls that were wrestling. There were a couple who were very competitive against the boys, and when they beat them the coaches were doing a tremendous job of treating the girl as if she were just another opponent (as opposed to making a big deal out of losing to a girl).

The entertainment before the finals was a rap performance by Sebastian Richards, the guy who does the "I'm a Wrestler" song.

In any case, it was a great experience to watch the younger kids enjoy wrestling so much. That is why I thought I'd share it.

My question is, do any other cities have programs like this at the middle school level? Not like private wrestling schools that you have to pay for, this is done for free through the school system. I would be very interested to see if other cities implement this type of program...